1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cassette tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus suitably applied to a cassette video tape recorder or the like, and particularly, to a cassette tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus used for a plurality of types of tape cassette whose distances between the centers of respective pairs of reels differ from one another.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional adapter system has been proposed for the cassette video tape recorder to be used for a plurality of types of tape cassette having different distances between the centers of respective pairs of reels. This adapter system is such that a small cassette having a small center distance between reels is set in an adapter having the same size as a standard cassette, whose center distance between reels is larger, and mounted in the cassette video tape recorder through the adapter, and thus the small cassette can be recorded/reproduced by the cassette video tape recorder used for the standard cassette.
However, according to this conventional adapter system, the adapter is an extra piece of equipment, and it results in raising considerably the cost of production. In addition, when the small cassette is set in the adapter, many cumbersome manual operations for setting are necessary such as positioning of the small cassette in the adapter, opening and locking of its front lid and pulling-out of a tape from the cassette for mounting it on a take-up arm and guide pin. It is very troublesome for a user to set the small cassette in the adapter, and it results in prolonging the setting time and causing inconvenience to him. Further, when the adapter system is used, it is impossible to use such an automatic cassette changer as to mount optionally any of the small and standard (large) cassettes in the video tape recorder.